Buying tickets for March Madness

dknightx · #1 01-22-2007, 01:17 PM

I'm planning on purchasing some tickets for a game during this years NCAA men's basketball tournament, and just wanted to make sure the price i'm paying isn't too extreme. Right now, there are no tickets available on ebay for the location I want to watch the game (San Jose). I did find a website that would sell tickets for individual days (usually have to buy them as a strip of tickets for both days), but at the price of $180 for upper-leve corner seats ...

so my question is, am I better off waiting until these tickets become available on ebay (will they?) or should I just purchase them online, as the price continues to increase every few days or so.

thanks!

capone0 · #2 01-22-2007, 01:20 PM

My brother went to the UCLA-Memphis regional final game last year. He was sitting next to a guy who went to a lot of games. The guy said if you want the 2nd day tickets (not sure what you want), it's best to buy scalped tickets from fans of teams that got eliminated. If you want first day tickets, your going to have to pay a price. Biggest thing is, with the earlier tournament games your going to be paying for more than 1 game each night so the higher than average price is going to be the norm.

dknightx · #3 01-22-2007, 01:24 PM

Sorry, should have been a bit more specific. I'm looking at buying tickets for the elite 8 games on Saturday march 24. If I buy the strip of tickets, I get 3 games total, 2 on thursday and the elite 8 game on saturday. The problem is, i'm buying the tickets for a friend as a bday present, but he would be unable to attend the games on thursday. So my goal now is to get tickets for JUST the saturday game ... which are right now anywhere from $150-$400 each.

capone0 · #4 01-22-2007, 01:30 PM

I'm not sure how it goes in San Jose, but my brother paid ~100 bucks for the Memphis-UCLA game last year in SF/Oakland for 1 ticket by himself like 30 rows from the court. Those seem kinda high for upper course tickets but maybe that's just me.

BWebb · #5 01-22-2007, 02:00 PM

From my only experience trying to get into the two Sweet 16 games, scalped tickets are very hard to come by. I would imagine it would be easier for Elite 8 games since about half of the fans could care less either way.

Quick Story:
A few years back me and a couple of friends went to the Sweet 16 games in San Jose (UCLA, Oklahoma, Missouri and I forgot the last team). Anyway, it was a spur of the moment trip and we thought we could get scalped tickets pretty easily. We were very wrong. It was impossible to find anyone selling more than 1 ticket. We tried for awhile, got dejected and started to leave. When we got towards the back of the arena, a man who was probably a bum (if not, he looked very much like one) asked if we wanted to watch the games. We said of course. He told us $60 each. I was obviously weary and asked to see the tickets. He just said if you want to watch the games, $60 each. We said fine. He takes us to a secondary/emergency door with no handles on the outside. He bends done and grabs the bottom of the door which had been propped open with a napkin or something. He told us to follow him. We ran up about 4 flights of stairs and burst through a door onto the main concourse. We went to the nearest bathroom, gave him the money and were able to easily find seats for both games. Ended up having a great time as we just rooted for the schools who's section we were sitting. Don't count on this guy being there again.

droopy0021 · #6 01-22-2007, 02:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, should have been a bit more specific. I'm looking at buying tickets for the elite 8 games on Saturday march 24. So my goal now is to get tickets for JUST the saturday game ... which are right now anywhere from $150-$400 each.

[/ QUOTE ]

Biggest factor is the #1 seed and the proximity of the Regional site to that team. Example:

Midwest regional (St Louis, MO), Wisconsin might be on track for that #1 seed. Badger fans travel REAL well, and St Louis is only 5-6 hour drive from southern Wisconsin. That would likely be a tougher ticket and I would think I'd buy early.

West Regional: UCLA probably holds the track, but how well do they draw?

I was in Minneapolis for regionals last year and you couldn't sell a ticket (higher up & it's a dome) for face value for the final between Villanova & Florida.

You're always going to have half the fans that are going to be bummed and some might leave.

At this point, you need to "project" who the top couple seeds might be for the San Jose regional and figure how well those fans might travel.

mattsey9 · #7 01-22-2007, 02:42 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, should have been a bit more specific. I'm looking at buying tickets for the elite 8 games on Saturday march 24. If I buy the strip of tickets, I get 3 games total, 2 on thursday and the elite 8 game on saturday. The problem is, i'm buying the tickets for a friend as a bday present, but he would be unable to attend the games on thursday. So my goal now is to get tickets for JUST the saturday game ... which are right now anywhere from $150-$400 each.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have to have them right away, buy the tickets for the entire session and sell off the ones you don't want/need. If you're willing to get the Elite 8 tickets a little later, you'll get good prices by waiting outside the arena after the Sweet 16 games are ending and buying from the fans whose teams are going home.

MyTurn2Raise · #8 01-22-2007, 06:27 PM

depends....$180 would've been a steal for the 04-05 regional final I attended, but a rip off for some of the others

tickets will be more premium due to San Jose not being a dome--it's played at the Shark Tank, right?

Depends if the local teams will be there. If UCLA is still in and playing, $180 is a good price. If not, it's probably overpriced.

I used to scalp tickets for some side income
My lean at this point is that it's a little high, but if it's for a friend, who cares?
The price won't get significantly lower until much, much closer to the event.

MyTurn2Raise · #9 01-22-2007, 06:28 PM

ST. Louis is played in the dome this year, right?

Regionals won't be a tough ticket then.

The good news is that the Transworld dome is much better for watching basketball than either the Hoosier Dome (RCA) or Metrodome.

MyTurn2Raise · #10 01-22-2007, 06:31 PM

oh yeah...I will say that the 04-05 regional final in Chicago was the toughest ticket I can ever remember for an elite 8. It was $300/ticket for the upper corners.